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From: "M.F. Pickell" <>
Subject: [NJHUNTER] Genealogy
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 13:08:27 -0700



I know that we should not put personal things on this site and keep it just
for queries and such but this was sent to me and I thought you who are "the
story tellers" might enjoy it.
We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find
the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to
tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and
approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead,
breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of
the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our
genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do.

In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood
before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the
ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us." How
many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love
there for me? I cannot say.

It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why do I do
the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to
weeds and indifference and saying I can't let this happen. The bones here
are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something
about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to
accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to
respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up,
their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.

It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and
keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they
were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers
struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love
each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we
are. That we might remember them. So we do.

With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we
are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I
tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next
generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family
storytellers.

That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young
and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those whom we had never
known before.

(Unknown Author)

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